


Weapon of Mass Distraction

by shinelikethunder (tenlittlebullets)



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Sex Pollen, Ugly Sweaters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 13:07:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2508947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenlittlebullets/pseuds/shinelikethunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with mold infestations is, no matter how much scrubbing and bleaching and laundering you do, they always come back to haunt you. You can salt the goddamn earth, and there will still be that <i>one sweater</i> you put on a year later and find yourself sneezing and itching all over again.</p>
<p>Sometimes, being a SHIELD first responder for mad-science disasters means discovering the same general principle holds true for other spore-emitting abominations. Even ones whose side effects are a lot more interesting than sneezing and itching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weapon of Mass Distraction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stoatsandwich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoatsandwich/gifts).



"No," growled Bucky's voice from the hall.

Steve, back from his jog and about to scramble some eggs for breakfast, looked up to see Bucky glowering at him in the doorway. He was bleary-eyed, unshaven, and still wearing the clothes he'd gone to bed in last night, which was about par for the course for 8:30am on a Saturday. "Coffee'll be ready in a minute," Steve said, knowing the smell was what had lured Bucky into the kitchen.

"Good," said Bucky savagely, and wrenched a chair away from the table with far more force than necessary. Somehow he managed to make the act of sitting down in their cozy breakfast nook, complete with blue-and-white gingham placemats and framed poster for a 1957 Howling Commandos movie, into a gesture of unspeakable menace. "Good. Maybe my eyes will hurt less then."

"Bucky...?" Alcohol didn't work much better on Bucky than it did on Steve, so a hangover was out of the question.

"Jesus, Steve. How many war-crimes treaties did you have to break to get your hands on that thing?"

For just a second, unease prickled down Steve's spine, and without meaning to he cracked an egg hard enough to get fragments of shell in the bowl. He didn't _think_ there was anything that exotic in the apartment, but he hadn't spent seventy years with captors who treated war-crimes treaties as to-do lists, so what did he...

And then Steve realized Bucky was pointing one metal finger squarely at the middle of his chest. At his _sweater_. He chucked a wadded-up dish towel at Bucky's head in exasperation. "Sam's grandmother knitted it for me. If you've got a problem with it, you can take it up with her. And let me tell you, buddy, better you than me."

Bucky had snatched the towel out of midair faster than thought, and now he slapped it theatrically to his face to shield his eyes. "No thanks. Anyone who can produce _that_ is a threat far beyond my skillset."

This was all a bit rich coming from someone who would rather plumb the hideous, never-worn depths of Steve's dresser drawers than face up to the imminent need to do laundry. No matter how Winter-Soldierish Bucky looked with his black shirt and metal arm and murderous pre-coffee glare, Steve knew for a fact that under the table he was wearing nothing but an appalling pair of Captain America boxers with a cartoon rendition of Steve's face plastered across the crotch. They'd been Tony Stark's idea of a touching personalized gift two Christmases ago, and they hadn't even left their plastic packaging until the day Bucky dug them up and almost busted a rib laughing. No one brazen enough to wear those _into Steve's bed_ had any right to get melodramatic over a cheesy sweater.

"Where was that thing hidden, anyway?" Bucky asked, and Steve gave up on picking bits of shell out of the eggs and resolved to make sure all the fragments ended up on Bucky's plate instead. "Because I'm pretty sure that if I'd seen it before I would've burned it on sight. Or left it impaled on a fence post as a warning to any passing thrift store owners."

"I took the winter clothes out of storage two days ago, you jerk."

The coffee maker clicked, and Bucky stalked over to fill the mug that seemed to have materialized in his hand on his way to the kitchen. He gave Steve a long, knowing smirk while he poured. "Yeah," he said, and suddenly he was up in Steve's space, circling him with a predatory gleam in his eye. "I thought the laundry situation was getting pretty desperate too."

Predatory was an alarmingly good look on Bucky, but that didn't mean Steve was going to take any crap from him about laundry procrastination methods. And besides, he was _hungry_ , and he'd just turned the stove on and stuck a couple slices of bread in the toaster. He smacked Bucky on the ass with the spatula and gave him a light shove back out of the kitchen. "I can tell. Nice shorts. Pour me a mug, wouldja?"

Breakfast proceeded a lot more cheerfully after the coffee had worked its magic on Bucky's morning grouchiness, but he was still up like a shot to grab Steve's arm when he tried to make his way out the door. "Don't tell me you're going _out_ in that thing."

Steve gave him a capital-L Look. "Believe it or not, lots of people wear sweaters outside in November."

Bucky backed him up against the door, and instead of letting go of Steve's arm he pinned it above his head, which... shouldn't have been hot, given that this whole argument was ridiculous and Bucky was blasting coffee-scented morning breath two inches from his face and still wearing those ludicrous boxers. But predatory did happen to be a good look on him, and besides, when had Steve ever cared what should or shouldn't be hot where Bucky was concerned? He leaned forward those two inches to bite Bucky's lower lip, and tried to look as obnoxiously innocent as possible when Bucky pulled back to glare at him.

"I know where you sleep, Rogers," he said, and tightened his metal fingers around Steve's forearm. "And someday, when you're least expecting it, I will steal into your closet in the dead of night, armed to the teeth. And you won't even realize I was there until you come home to find the disembowelled, mutilated remains strung up around your apartment. As a warning. That we did not both die, miraculously survive, and find each other again after seven decades on ice so that Captain America could turn into a ninety-year-old geezer who goes out in public wearing _atrocious grandpa sweaters._ "

Steve grabbed the doorknob with his free hand and twisted it, and when Bucky tried to drive home his point by slamming him backwards again, the door swung outwards and dumped them both in the hallway. Any vestiges of an intimidating effect that speech might've had on him died an ignoble death at the discovery that however dubious the cartoon likeness of his face on Bucky's shorts might've been, that was _nothing_ to how they looked with a tent pitched in them.

He grinned. "All the more reason for me to wear it out instead of leaving it here with you," he said, and took off down the hall at a jog.


End file.
